Yellow Wife

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-21

Part 2, Chapters 22-26

Part 3, Chapters 27-32

Part 3, Chapters 33-36

Part 3, Chapter 37-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 3, Chapter 37-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapter 37 Summary: “Come by Here, My Lord”

Pheby returns to church with three of her daughters. Rubin insists she leave one child behind. Pheby sits next to a woman that assists enslaved people to escape to the North. The woman tells Pheby to meet her at the bakery where she works.

Later that week, Pheby visits the bakery on her trip to the market. She asks for assistance for her son and Essex. The woman tells Pheby that Rubin’s reputation will make it impossible for Essex to escape, but Pheby is insistent. The woman promises to do what she can, but later tells Pheby that she can only secure passage for Monroe.

Part 3, Chapter 38 Summary: “Grounded”

Rubin is suspicious of Pheby and continually threatens her. Pheby sends a message with one of the household staff to the woman at the bakery. When Pheby sees Monroe working back at the jail, she speaks to him and notices that he has changed. Monroe is more submissive and quieter and has lost his childlike liveliness. Monroe confesses that he is worried he is about to be sold.

Part 3, Chapter 39 Summary: “Sick and Tired”

Pheby learns that Essex’s living conditions are worse than ever. As Pheby entertains Rubin’s guests by playing the piano, she overhears them talking about buying a planter. She flirts with Rubin and suggests that the sale might be a good opportunity to make a profit off Essex, knowing that Rubin will treat him better if he believes he can make money. Rubin permits Pheby to move Essex and clean him up. She tells Essex that she has moved forward with plans to help him escape.

Part 3, Chapter 40 Summary: “Fattened for Slaughter”

Rubin provides Essex with more food and care in the hopes that he can sell him for profit. After an evening at the tavern, Rubin asks Pheby if she loves him. She says she does, and he commands her to say it. Pheby slips Rubin sleeping powder. She sneaks out into the night and gathers Monroe, Essex, and Abbie, a house servant who begged her to help her escape as well. Tommy joins them. She introduces Essex to Monroe as his father. She removes the necklace Essex gave her and returns it, telling him to stay safe and to watch out for their son. The four escapees climb onto a boat and disappear into the night.

Epilogue Summary

The epilogue is made up of two letters. The first letter is from Pheby to her daughter Hester. The reader learns that the war has ended and that Rubin died. Rubin left the jail and what little money he had left after the war to Pheby. Pheby changes the name of Devil’s Half Acre to God’s Half Acre.

The second letter is addressed to Pheby from Hester. She is married, safe, and happy, as are her sisters. Hester tells Pheby that she saw Monroe in the market, and they met privately. Monroe is married with two children. He told Pheby that Essex passed away from tuberculosis, but they had spent several years happy together.

Part 3, Chapter 37-Epilogue Analysis

The Epilogue reveals the outcomes of Pheby’s actions. Johnson provides hope while grounding the narrative in the reality of slavery: Monroe is safe in the North with his own family. Essex lived with son before dying of tuberculosis. Pheby’s daughters are living rich and complicated lives. Meanwhile, Pheby stayed with Rubin until his death. She inherited the Lapier jail. The story is not resolved tidily for all the characters. As Hester lives her life as a white woman, she is fearful to write her mother for fear that someone may discover her secret. Pheby continues to live in the South where her very existence is in perpetual danger.

In the anthology You Are Your Best Thing, edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown (2021), the writers show how The Pervasive Trauma of Enslavement lasts far beyond the end of slavery or even Juneteenth. They draw attention to the way racism continues to manifest and develop trauma. The impact of slavery is one that resounds today.

In Yellow Wife, Johnson seeks to pull back the curtain on the complex and traumatic experiences of enslaved women. In an interview with NPR, Johnson says:

I have a teenage daughter who says, you know, Mom, every year we learn about Martin Luther King. We learn about Jesse Owens. We learn about, you know, Jackie Robinson, but we don’t learn about, you know, the Mary Lumpkins of the world (Rascoe, Ayesha. “Sadeqa Johnson on her novel ‘The House of Eve.’” NPR, 2023).

Pheby’s story rejects the white-centric narratives perpetuated by historical traditionalism. It illustrates The Complex Relationship Between Submission and Defiance, as well as the perseverance and power of the individuals who maintained the freedom of their minds.